A Caveman and Going to See the Doctor

Cavemen, and this particular caveman do not usually enjoy going to see the doctor.

First, why should we ever go? We caveman never think that what ails us in anything big or something that we can't workout for ourselves.

Sure pains come and go. My pain began in my right hip in the spring of 2006. The pain came, was pretty sharp for a few days and then went away. When the pain came back, this caveman just thought it was muscle pain, just like he (I) thought it was, the last time it was felt.

Over time, the pain reoccured, got sharper, stayed around longer, and the periods of time between pain episodes got shorter and shorter.

Because I finally acknowledged just last August, that I had the family curse of diabetes visiting me, I went to see the doctor for that reason. During that visit, I told the doctor about the pain I have been having in my hip and we both decided it was probably muscle pains, cuz hey, I am getting older and I have been doing a very physical job for over a quarter of a century.

Let me remind you now that cavemen don't like to see doctors. Perhaps they will tell us that there could be problems that would keep us from doing our two primary duties: providing for the cave members, and attempting to assist in the addition of cave babies.

Going to see the doctor never fits into either of the missions of a caveman. Doctors might tell us that we are getting too old to perform our two main duties, or they might even tell us that we can no longer do either or both of our two main duties.

Of course, there are two instances where cavemen will quickly visit the doctor's office. The first most important reason is if we find ourselves having difficulty, in any way, with our natural attempts at assisting in the procreation of cave babies. We will sometime speed to the doctor's office and even pay lots more money to get this problem corrected. It is so engulfed in our nature to do the assisting things, that to not do them makes us feel like we are not cavemen anymore.

We also visit the doctor, reluctantly it seems, if we have problems providing for the folks back at the cave. Being hunter-gatherers as one of only two primary missions for existing, when we finally tell ourselves that we are not hunting and/or gathering like we know we should, sometimes that gets us to see a doctor.

My problem isn't one of assisting in the creation of cave babies. My problem deals with hunting and gathering. It finally got to the point where it was too painful to go to work. I could no longer walk without having extremely sharp pain in my right hip.

So now I sit in my cave, which is my office portion of my wife's cave. I don't have an easy chair or recliner type of cave and my cave/garage is far too cluttered for my liking. So here I sit in my very own cave within my wife's cave. I am now waiting for the results of the MRI I had this morning.

I know the MRI machine was invented by a caveman. It is really big, really, really loud, and makes banging sounds only true cavemen can tolerate, and even love. Not only can you hear the pounding going on, you get to enjoy the pounding feeling throughout your caveman's body. I think I should have paid for a ticket to ride inside the machine.

So back to the hip pain. The Orthopedist said during my preliminary examination that I probably have avascular necrosis of the right hip. It is also called osteo necrosis which translates to bone death. When blood supply is cut off to bones, for whatever reasons, they begin and continue to die. It looks like my right hip is dying.

The best fix for me, I feel, is to replace my right hip with a titanium one. Not THAT is a caveman's dream. To become partially metallic, to have titanium inside your body, now that is really caveman. My Panasonic Tough Book laptop comupter I use at work has a case made out of titanium. It is quite a lot like the laptops the Army is using in Iraq. It won't stop a bullet, but it takes a pounding. I feel I would be honored to have some titanium in me just like my tough laptop has.

The sooner I get my titanium, the sooner I can get back to my hunting and gathering mission.

Being stuck in my cave is not the worst thing in the world, though. I get to be around all of my toys and it is the second most comfortable place in the entire world for me to be. The first place is, well, it has something to do with the other duty all cavemen have.

My cave-wife is home much of the time, too. So I get to be around the two best places in the world for a caveman to be and I am there almost all the time.

I got lucky this time. Most cavemen who wait too long to see the doctor don't get to live long enough to enjoy being at their cave, or they are in too much pain or too sick to enjoy being in their cave. As long as I don't walk too much, I can now live relatively pain free, until I get my hip fixed.

Some cavemen are not like me, though. If they are stuck in their cave for too long they fight to get back to the hunting and gathering. I know there is an internal mechanism demanding that even I get back to the business of hunting and gathering. But every time I walk for any length of time, my hip reminds me that I really need to wait a bit longer before forcing myself back to the plains and fields where I hunt and gather.

Please don't be sad for me. I waited too long to see the doctor and now I will probably need to have more radical surgery than I would have if I had pursued the problem more last year. It is my fault. My only defense is that I am a caveman and I can't help it.